Simon Baron-Cohen On Sex Differences In The Brain And Autism
Written by SAPL on November 19th, 2018 in Science and Technology.
The news is in and it is confirmed. Men and women really do have different brains. Autistics have even different brains.
So says Simon Baron-Cohen and a group of colleagues at the University of Cambridge after concluding a study that included approximately 700,000 people in the United Kingdom.
Baron-Cohen, noted for his extensive research on autism, along with Carie Alison, David M. Greenberg and Varun Warrier published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Before you critics of autism research throw a dagger at the conclusions because they sound stereotyped, pause for a moment. Baron-Cohen and colleagues have done a nice job of explaining the difference between a mind that lacks empathy and a one that just has to work hard to read it. Autistics are most likely the latter.
Basically, the study confirmed that males and females score differently on empathy and systemising. Males tend to score lower on empathy than females and higher on systemising. Systemising is the act of creating a pattern and continuing to follow it to maintain order. Many so-called “left-brained” professions rely heavily on it.
According to the group, there is a difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Cognitive is the ability to recognize empathy while affective is the ability to respond or “act like you care.” Autistics have issues with cognitive, meaning it may be difficult to recognize that a person may need his or her attention.
Such findings may do wonders for everyone in the search for clues and tips on interacting with those on the spectrum. And for interacting with those “males” not technically on the spectrum.
